Perception Is Key
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: Maya’s soft humming mixes with Alejandro’s snores and the oddly melodic sound of the tires on the road, allowing Sylar to slip easily into memory.


Title: Perception Is Key

Author: SabaceanBabe

Rating: pg-13

Word count: 2,753

Warnings: a couple of bad words

Summary: _Maya's soft humming mixes with Alejandro's snores and the oddly melodic sound of the tires on the road, allowing Sylar to slip easily into memory._

Author's note: Written as part of the Sylar Ficathon so generously hosted by verbalvixen, this fic is for tanisafan. Her prompt: _Eden and/or Maya being seduced by Sylar, other than that, I'm really not too fussed._ Many thanks to grammarwoman for the quick beta.

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He reaches out and gently pushes a few stray strands away from her eyes, staring deeply into them as he does so. _Trust me, little Maya,_ he thinks to himself, and she smiles. Clearly, she does trust him, even in the face of her brother's monumental suspicion. _I'll have to do something about Alejandro soon. But not just yet._ For now, he needs him around, if only to keep pretty, trusting Maya happy. Or, if not happy, at least calm.

Sylar turns away from his pet and stares out the passenger-side window at the darkening sky. The light is fading fast in the desert twilight as he listens to the soft snores of Alejandro in the backseat, audible above the white noise of the road even without the benefit of Dale Smither's hearing. God, he misses his powers. He's not sure he believes Mohinder can restore them, but it's not as though Suresh can't help him in other ways.

Resting his head on the headrest, still facing toward the window, Sylar closes his eyes against the present. He's learned so much since the last time he tried to gain someone's help. Learned how to earn someone's trust without offering anything in return. Learned how to manipulate perceptions without the use of his powers, and that was _before_ they were taken from him.

Maya's soft humming mixes with Alejandro's snores and the oddly melodic sound of the tires on the road, allowing Sylar to slip easily into memory.

"_What are you reading?" he asked loudly, emphasizing each word carefully to be understood through the thick glass. His nose nearly touched the cold barrier; his breath quickly fogged the surface before just as quickly dissipating. On the other side, the girl with the short dark hair flipped through a magazine, pausing now and again to read an article or an ad before she turned to yet another page._

_She looked up, eyes unreadable. "A magazine." And she returned to paging through said magazine._

_Sylar's left eye twitched, but he forced himself not to pound on the glass and rail at the bitch, as he longed to do. She had been there in that field, outside the high school, where he'd dragged himself after the fall. She had said something, done something to him but he couldn't remember what. Every time he tried, his head began to pound almost as badly as it did when he harvested another power. He wouldn't give up trying, though. He'd remember eventually, no matter what these people had planned._

_He leaned his forehead against the glass, doing his best to appear weak, anything but dangerous. He needed to get out of this cage. He felt them all around him, including this girl, just waiting to be consumed. They gnawed at his brain like rats gnawing their way into a storage shed, seeking a new home._

_He tried again. "No, I meant what magazine are you reading."_

_She didn't even look up at him this time, and she spoke naturally, evidently aware that he could hear her. "I know what you meant." His fingers curled into fists so tight his nails dug into his palms._

"_Why won't you talk to me?" He kept his voice steady, innocuous, forcing the snarl back. If she was going to help him escape, he had to make her trust him, and snarling at her wasn't going to achieve his goal. But she didn't answer him again, just continued reading whatever article had caught her interest. "You're afraid of me." That had to be it. She was afraid of him and he could use that._

_She kept reading, one page half-turned, ready to move on to the next once she finished the current paragraph, the current sentence. She completely ignored him._

_He did pound on the glass then, first with fists and then with open palms, the slapping sound somehow louder than the pounding. The bitch finally looked at him, her expression only mildly curious. "Did that make you feel better?"_

"_As a matter of fact, it did." He smiled, not letting the expression reach his eyes._

"Wake up, Gabriel." Maya's voice intrudes on his reverie, the sound of his name exotic, special.

He opens his eyes to the full dark of night, no clouds to reflect or moon to add light. Not that he'd be able to see cloud or moon or goddamned twinkling stars past the harsh lights of the motel parking lot they've pulled into.

"Why are we stopping?" Sylar frowns, irritated. The clock on the dashboard reads 7:43 PM, far too early to stop for the night. Alejandro leans forward and rests his arms on the back of the seat, between the headrests, and says something to his sister. Sylar talks over him. "We have hours yet before we should stop."

Maya sighs. She responds sharply to Alejandro and then says more calmly to Sylar, "There is a light on the..." Her voice trails off as she searches her mind for the English word. Coming up empty, she waves a hand at the dash where there is indeed an engine-shaped light. A glance at the rest of the instruments tells Sylar that the car's temperature is elevated.

"Dammit! That's just great. Stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere with half the _fucking_ border patrol chasing us." He looks at Maya, who appears to be on the verge of tears. Pressure begins to build behind his eyes, a heaviness in the air, and he modulates his tone, forces a smile for her as he continues more calmly, "Well, at least we're on the right side of the border. We'll find someone who can fix it."

She smiles at the reassurance and the built-up pressure fades, restoring his composure. Nodding, she says, "Yes. Yes. There is a car... _place_ there." She points further up the road to a low building, its windows dark save for a lone fluorescent security light. A spotlight high atop a pole illuminates a plastic sign facing the road. _Donnie's Automotive._ He can't make out the smaller print from this distance.

"Not a car place. A car repair shop," he absently corrects her and opens the door. The almost cold air hits him as he gets out and surveys their surroundings. Beyond Donnie's he sees more lights in the distance and a sign that probably has the name of the small town those lights must belong to. There's nothing but darkness in the direction from which they've come.

He rests his arms on the roof of the car and looks at the single-story motel -- _The Garden of Eden_ -- and Sylar can't help but laugh.

_Her name was Eden McCain, but Sylar hadn't learned that from her. No. That bit of information came from the doctor who was trying his best to keep him sedated and pliable, harmless. For now, it pleased Sylar to allow him to believe just that. That he was harmless. No one needed to know that the drugs weren't working quite as intended, that his body metabolized them in about half the expected time. Because if they knew…_

"_Stand back from the door, Mr. Sylar." Her voice was soft velvet. The doctor was much larger than Eden, more physically imposing, but it was obvious which of the two in the now-open doorway was in charge._

"_And what will you do if I don't, pretty Eden?"_

_She blinked at that. Such a small chink in her armor, but it was there. She could be manipulated after all._

_Cocking her head to one side, she stared straight at him, delicate hands on slim hips. "Do it," she said. "Stand back." Velvet and steel._

_And he did. He didn't want to. He had to. Three stumbling steps backward took him out of range of the door. Even so, he might still have been able to take the doctor as he stepped through, but Sylar found that he was unable to take those three steps forward again. The will was there, but his muscles wouldn't obey._

_Eden remained outside the cell, smiling._

_Something stung his arm and Sylar looked down to see a large syringe in the doctor's shaking hand. "More tests, doctor?" he asked, but the man declined to answer. Sylar laughed softly, his amusement growing as the blood drained from the doctor's face in synch with his own blood filling the syringe._

_When the first was full, the doctor laid it on the cot and took out a second syringe. He hesitated for a moment and Sylar caught his eye. "If you're going to take my bodily fluids, doctor, shouldn't I at least know your name?"_

_Before he could answer, Eden did it for him. "You don't need to know his name, Mr. Sylar."_

_He looked over at her. She leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, the very picture of casual observation. "You don't believe that names are power, do you, sweet Eden?" As soon as Sylar broke eye contact with him, the doctor plunged the second needle into his arm, withdrawing the blood at a faster pace than before, suddenly in a hurry to get his job done and get away._

_When he was finished, the man pulled the needle out and went directly for the door, pushing past Eden. Keeping an eye on Sylar, she backed out and closed it behind her, a hum and a click indicating the lock was engaged. Able to move again, Sylar picked up the first blood-filled syringe, abandoned on the cot. Sauntering over to the window, he rapped on the glass. When Eden turned toward the sound, he waggled the blood-filled container between his fingers._

_For a fraction of a second, her eyes widened, but then the porcelain mask was back in place. Eden called over her shoulder to the doctor, stopping him as he was about to leave. "Is it absolutely necessary that you have both vials of blood?" she asked him, her tone annoyed._

_He nodded. "Yes. There isn't enough in this one to run all the tests they've ordered." He looked terrified and Sylar threw his head back and laughed. It crossed his mind to drop the syringe and step on it, spilling his blood onto the concrete floor, but they would only draw more and the amusement the gesture might afford him wasn't worth it._

_Eyes never leaving Sylar, the man pleaded with Eden. "Please, don't make me go back in there."_

_Shaking her head in exasperation, Eden returned her attention to Sylar. He stopped laughing and cocked his head, curious as to what she would do. "Stay here, Doctor Reese," she said and then she was at the door to the cell, keying in the code to unlock it._

_"Stand back, Mr. Sylar," she ordered him again as the door opened. Without making her use that wonderful ability, one that he fully intended to acquire as soon as he safely could, Sylar did as she asked, stepping back until he was next to the cot but away from the door. He still held the syringe._

_A door slammed shut with a bang just outside the cell. Eden jumped, Sylar was happy to note, startled at the doctor's display of cowardice. She was alone with him. As a gesture of good faith, or rather as a gesture he hoped would allay some of her fears, he lay the syringe down on the cot and took a half-step away._

_"I promise I won't try to escape," he said, putting as much sincerity as he could muster into the words. Not that he would keep that promise. He wanted out of this place and he needed her help to do it, whether she was willing or not. If he gauged it properly, a quick jab to her throat should take out her voice without truly hurting her…_

_Tentatively, she took one step toward him and then another, keeping her eyes on his. "You have beautiful eyes, Eden. Did you know that?" She didn't respond, moving carefully to the other side of the cot._

_He had no idea why she didn't simply use her power on him and he didn't care. As soon as she was in range and distracted, reaching for the syringe, Sylar sprang at her. Her wrist felt delicate in his grasp, fragile. She tried to pull away, opened her mouth to use her _voice _on him, and he ground the bones of her wrist together in his hand, jerked her toward him over the cot._

"_You're going to help me, little Eden," he told her._

"_No, she is not," a man's voice said from behind, just before everything went white._

Still inside the car, Alejandro and Maya argue, sharp words flying. Sylar doesn't know what they're saying and doesn't care, although twice he hears his name. Shaking his head, a half-smile on his face, he steps back from the car and slams the door shut. The sound of the argument cuts off, but he is already halfway to the motel office when he hears a car door open.

"Gabriel!" Maya calls after him, but he just waves at her over his shoulder and keeps walking.

A bell over the door announces his presence to the bored clerk behind the desk. His attention doesn't fully stray from the show he watches on the small television as he pushes a book toward Sylar. "Sign your name, your license plate number and state. How many rooms?"

"One." They can't afford two. He signs in as Gabriel McCain.

The clerk pulls the register book closer and spins it so he can read the information. "I need your license number and state, Mr., uh, McCain."

Sylar slides him a twenty. "We walked." With a shrug, the man pockets the bill.

"Suit yourself." He grabs a key from a rack behind the desk. "Room 113 is on the north end, away from the road. Fifty bucks a night."

Sylar nods and, taking the key, turns to leave. Behind him, the man returns to his show.

Alejandro's snores fill the small room, not a constant nuisance, but enough to make sure that Sylar can't sleep. Every time he starts to drop off, another sharp sound jolts him, and he's wide awake again. Sylar flops over onto his side, facing away from the window and the permanent gap between the curtains and the stream of orange light from the parking lot. He punches his pillow. Hard. "Maybe Mohinder can help you with your breathing problems," he mutters, pulling the covers up. "If I don't _help_ you with them, first."

"You are awake, Gabriel?"

"Maya. Yes, I can't sleep."

The rustle of fabric floats from the darkness and then she's there, kneeling beside his bed, all earnest eyes and tousled hair. "I am sorry, Gabriel. He is keeping me awake, too."

Sylar smiles at her, reaches out a hand to smooth her hair. He loves touching her hair, so soft and warm from the heat of her body. His little pet. "Your hair is beautiful, Maya. Did you know that?" She settles to the floor, legs out to the side, and leans in, her left shoulder against the mattress. She smiles up at him, her eyes glittering in the light from the window.

Acting on pure instinct, Sylar rolls toward her, stops with his face mere inches from hers. Her eyes are half-closed, her lips slightly parted and for half a second, he thinks of her brother, asleep in the other bed and that he could wake up at any moment. Not that he's truly a physical threat, but an angry man, defending his sister's honor…

His lips brush hers lightly, once, twice.

"Gabriel," she whispers, her breath soft on his chin.

He snakes his hand to the back of her head, tangles his fingers in her hair, pulls her in. Their open mouths meet with almost bruising force and he plunges his tongue into hers, tasting her, wanting more than just a taste.

It occurs to him that, if he still had his powers, he could fuck her right now and her brother could do nothing about it. But he doesn't have his powers and, because of that, he still needs them both.

Reluctantly, his body screaming at him for being a fool, Sylar pulls away from his Maya. And she is his, whether she realizes it or not. One day, he'll take her body and he'll take her power, but not just yet.

He can wait.


End file.
